


How to Plan the Perfect Wedding: A Guide by Jason Todd

by byeke



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Groomzilla, JayDick Summer Exchange, M/M, Marriage, Marriage Proposal, Wedding Fluff, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25836307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/byeke/pseuds/byeke
Summary: "When Jason thinks about getting engaged, he considers taking Dick to some stuffy restaurant on the top of a skyscraper and proposing as the city lights twinkle behind them. He also considers that he isn’t going to do that. Every rich couple in Gotham has probably proposed in some similar extravagant fashion and he hates that an engagement could be used to flaunt status or money. Jason wanted something that felt more personal. He didn’t consider himself the sentimental type, but Dick has a way of bringing that out in him."OR: Jason and Dick get engaged. And Jason becomes a fretting, nervous wreck.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Comments: 19
Kudos: 143
Collections: JayDick Summer Exchange 2020





	How to Plan the Perfect Wedding: A Guide by Jason Todd

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hedgebelle (Ahaanzel)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahaanzel/gifts).



> Written for the JayDick Summer Exchange 2020
> 
> Prompt: Jason and Dick are getting married! To the surprise of absolutely everyone in the known universe, Jason turns out to be a groomzilla and a very intense one at that. Wedding planner, florist, baker, venue owner (the list goes on) all fear for their lifes. (Dick couldn't care less for all those details, but thinks that Jason caring so much is cute.)

When Jason thinks about getting engaged, he considers taking Dick to some stuffy restaurant on the top of a skyscraper and proposing as the city lights twinkle behind them. He also considers that he isn’t going to do that. Every rich couple in Gotham has probably proposed in some similar extravagant fashion and he hates that an engagement could be used to flaunt status or money. Jason wanted something that felt more personal. He didn’t consider himself the sentimental type, but Dick has a way of bringing that out in him. So, Jason searches his head for any bright idea that wants to present itself.

 _What does Dick like?_ he thinks. _Dick likes Dick._

_Focus, Todd._

_Dick likes elephants. Or maybe Dick likes only one elephant, Zitka. Maybe they could take a romantic ride on the back of an elephant at sundown–_

He stops himself. He has the foresight to know that wherever that idea was taking him isn’t the one.

Dick’s voice rings through the comm, “Hey Red Hood, you still with me?”

Jason’s finger rises to press the communicator nestled in his ear. His other hand goes to the impression of the engagement ring box hidden in his suit. In hindsight, taking it everywhere with him in the hopes that he’ll find the right moment isn’t his best idea, especially on stake outs. But having it near his person has a kind of soothing charm to it.

“Yeah, I’m here,” he says.

“I’ve got eyes on the front of the warehouse. They’re bringing in a truck, and I’m willing to bet that it’s hauling the latest shipment of whatever new drug they cooked up,” Dick says.

“I go in through the back and you go in through the ceiling, then? We’ll meet in the middle and have a party,” Jason says, as he checks that his gun has a full round of rubber bullets stocked in it.

“Sounds like fun. Meet you there.”

Jason leaps across a few roofs until he lands on the top of the warehouse. He shimmies a ceiling window loose and with a push he’s able to slip in and dropping to a catwalk a few feet down.

The warehouse is mostly empty, save for a few goons loitering around the front of the warehouse. Four by the front door with holsters at their hip and each carrying a machinegun. Three in the middle, playing poker or some shit. Their guns are scattered around the group, propped up by chairs. Morons.

Someone yells, “Get off your ass!”

The voice is close, and Jay lays himself as flat as he can on the grated catwalk. The eighth voice is on an adjacent catwalk and he’s calling to the group playing poker.

“I don’t fucking pay you to sit there. I want everyone alert, the truck is going to be here soon,” the man –the boss, probably– says.

It’s sheer coincidental timing that just then a loud singular beep rings throughout the building and one of the men buzzes in a truck. The truck comes to a stop so that the driver and the men can exchange a few words. The boss makes his way to the lower floor.

Nightwing says through the com, “Close one, huh Red?”

“What are you talking about. The guy didn’t even see me,” Jason says back.

Out of the corner of his eye Jason sees movement in the shadows below and a tell-tale flash of blue fingered gloves slipping behind a forgotten crate in the corner.

“There are eight in total – nine counting the driver. All carrying guns,” Jason says as a warning.

“There were two more in the back that I took out,” Nightwing says.

The boss is at the truck flipping back the canvas flap covering the bed, revealing packs of white powder.

“Target spotted. The drugs are in the back of the truck,” Jason says, and after a beat he adds, “ready to get this party started?”

“Be my dancing partner?” Nightwing says.

“Always.”

The lights go out, confusing the men for half a second before Jason hears yelling. Nightwing, being the closest, is the first to reach the group. He sees the flash and sparks of bullets and gunpowder before, and the sounds of a fight brewing. Someone yells and Jason swears that these nights with Nightwing are going to give him a heart attack. He lays a hand atop the ring box as a comfort. Then drops down to the lower floor, just as the lights flicker back into place.

He takes a second to take stock of the situation; none of the men are unconscious but at least one seems to be cradling his wrist. Nightwing is blocking the fists of a particularly burly man as a second one comes up from behind with a machete in hand. Jason sprints to get in between the man and Nightwing, successfully knocking the weapon out of the man’s hand. He hears the man’s wrist give a loud crack and the man hollers in pain. Jason grabs at the guns strapped this his thighs and with a gun in each hand, plants a rubber bullet in the chest of two goons running towards them.

Jason hears a man fall behind him as Nightwing slinks his way around to Jason’s left to land a few good whacks of his batons to one of the other guys. Jason and Nightwing twist around each other shooting bullets and striking foes. Jason supposes that this could be a sort of dance, a dangerous one where everyone else on the dancefloor is in the crossfires.

Soon the last man falls with a crash. Nightwing and Red Hood take a second to make sure that they’re going to stay down. A rusty car door squeaks behind them and the driver is making a run for it. Jason pops a cap in the back of the driver’s knee before he can get too far.

Nightwing is zip tying the other eight men to a waterline in the corner of the warehouse when Jason drags the driver over. They zip tie him too. When finished, Nightwing slaps his hands together as if getting rid of some invisible dirt.

“Job well done, partner,” Nightwing says as he raises his eyebrows suggestively.

Jason ignores him in favor of heading to the truck. He’s checking the drugs to make sure they are all accounted for when he hears a noise behind him.

“Shit,” Nightwing says.

This catches Jason’s attention

“What is it?” he asks, hurriedly making his way back around the truck.

Nightwing is crouched down. He picks at something on the ground and surveys it before saying, “Were these guys smuggling blood diamonds too?”

Nightwing twists around until he’s facing Jason. Still crouching, he’s holding out the ring. The same engagement ring that Jason had tucked away in its box only moments before. Jason’s hand automatically flies to his breast pocket to feel at the space where it was supposed to be. The space is void of the box.

‘Shit’ is right.

“We should check in with Tim at the cave. See if he has any intel on if these guys were connected to a something bigger than drug smuggling,” Nightwing says.

He’s already reaching for his comm.

“Wait,” Jason yells, which makes Nightwing pause mid reach.

Jason rubs at the bridge of his nose, and says, “Fuck. I didn’t mean for it to happen like this.”

Nightwing frowns. He’s still on one knee holding out the ring and from this pose it looks like Dick is the one proposing to Jay.

“Hood, what’s going on?” Nightwing says, his tone is full of concern and, if Jason isn’t mistaken, a bit of disapproval too.

“Look I was going to take you out to a nice restaurant or something. I hadn’t even decided on what I was going to do yet- “

“Hood.”

“You’re great. The best. This is an awful way to start it. I knew I should have prepared my speech with Alf before I even bought the thing- “

“Jason. What is this about?”

Jason sighs, hoping that this will allow him enough breadth or time or something to compose himself. It doesn’t.

He says, “The ring is for you.”

And when his words don’t seem to reach Dick, Jason plucks the ring from Dick’s fingers and kneels to Dick’s level. Dick’s hand is still hovering where he held the ring, so Jason takes his hand in his.

“The ring is for you,” Jason repeats, and then says, “I wanted to propose to you. But the ring must have slipped out during the fight and now we’re here kneeling on concrete that’s probably covered in piss and oil.”

Jason considers for a moment that this isn’t the best proposal speech that he could have done.

“What I’m trying to say is that you deserve a better proposal than this, but I love you and there’s no time like the present. So, marry me?”

Dick is stunned for a second. Without words, he gingerly slips his finger into the ring. It barely fits over his kevlar covered finger.

Dick is looking down at the ring on his finger, smiling. Then he’s laughing.

“Okay, fine. That was a bad proposal, but I don’t think it’s that funny,” Jason says, almost offended at Dick’s sudden outburst.

“No. No, I’m sorry. It’s just that I actually have an engagement ring for you hidden back at the apartment. I was going to propose to you next weekend.”

Dick presses a kiss to Jason’s lips then and if there are any future rumors going around the underbelly of Gotham that Nightwing and Red Hood got hitched, then so be it because that kiss is worth it.

* * *

News travels fast. Jay and Dick hadn’t even made the announcement before there were several missed calls and texts on each of their phones. Jay has a hunch that Oracle might have been behind the leak. They’re both going through their phones now catching up on what they’ve missed in the last few hours since. One of the most memorable voicemails came from Damian who insisted that they let him know immediately who was going to be best man and that there would be no one more fitting than him to take that honor.

While Jay isn’t bothering to reply to every text, Dick, on the other hand, is scrolling through his phone painstakingly typing out an answer to each one. When Jason eventually grows tired of watching, he rises from the couch they’re sharing, and crosses the room to grab his keys from the counter.

He swings his keys around his finger as he says, “C’mon Dick, it’d be faster if we just went to the manor and officially announce our engagement.”

Dick looks torn. He swings his gaze from his phone to Jay before pocketing the device. When they arrive, Alfred greets them at the front door before they even had have a chance to knock.

“Ah, the happy couple,” Alfred says, “We were wondering when the two of you would make an appearance.”

Jay starts, “Is everyone in the- “

“The cave? Yes. I suggest you two hurry down there.”

As Dick and Jason descend into the cave, they hear a struggle and several voices competing for the loudest spot. Tim and Damian are wrestling each other. Tim holds Damian’s phone just out of reach, while also holding off the brat from jumping him to get it.

“Release my phone at once, Drake,” Damian snarls.

Tim grunts against Damian’s onslaught as he says, “Leave them alone. You’re only going to fill up Dick’s voicemail at this rate.”

Bruce, who was at the large computer seemingly trying to concentrate, is the only one to notice Dick and Jayson’s appearance. Dick saunters past Jayson and over to the boys to easily pluck the phone out of Tim’s grasp.

Dick coos, “Dami, were you just about to call? Did you miss me?”

They try not to gawk at the sudden appearance of Dick, neither of them wanting to admit that they hadn’t noticed him enter the cave. This only lasts a beat before the two of them hounded Dick for answers. And to his credit, Dick tries his best to answer the onslaught of questions at first, but eventually drags Jason into the mess too. The questions only die down when Alfred brings them all some tea to ‘calm the wedding jitters’ Alfred had says.

“When is the wedding though?” Tim asks after a sip of tea.

Jason looks to Dick only to find Dick looking back at Jason for an answer.

“Undecided,” Jason says simply.

“You better decide soon,” Bruce says. “In our line of work, it’s best to have a set date for something important as soon as possible.”

Dick looks to Bruce then slowly turns to the rest of the group. “Well, how long do weddings usually take to plan? Like half a year?”

Alfred scoffs at this. Then says, “Some wedding can take more than a year to plan.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? I can’t plan for something two years away – might be dead again by then for all I know,” Jason says, giving him a few pointed stares from around the room.

Dick elbows Jason in the ribs, spilling some of the tea held in his hand.

Tim rests a hand on his chin and says, “Jason’s got a point. You can’t plan something a year out when what we do is so-“ Tim pauses, searching for the word.

This allows the group to pop in with their own words to describe it, some answering with ‘Dangerous’ or ‘A pain in the ass’.

“Unpredictable,” Tim says, “I was going to say unpredictable.”

“What about six months from now?” Dick says.

“I’ll be off-world with a few of the League members,” Bruce says without pausing to stop typing at the computer.

“What a shame. Guess we’ll have to do it without you,” Jason says, which did earn him a slight misstep in Bruce’s typing and a glare.

Dick makes a pitiful sound. “But I wanted to invite Clark!” He says.

Jason gives and says, “Five months from now then?”

“The Titans and I were going on a training mission. Not that I need it. It’s just that the others are so behind,” Damian says.

“Yeah, ‘training mission’,” Tim says, making air quotes with his fingers, “He means they’re going on a beach vacation.”

Before the two could launch into another pointless argument, Jason cuts them off with, “Fine! When exactly is everyone available?”

“Wait a minute,” Tim jumps up.

He runs over to the computer, pushes Bruce’s chair out of the way to have access to the keyboard.

“Cass, Steph, and Duke should be back from their undercover op in about three months.”

Tim goes silent for a moment as the keys click furiously underneath his fingers.

“So that means everyone else should be on-world, vacation free and major mission free the third weekend in June,” Tim finishes.

Dick comes up behind Tim and pats him on the shoulder, “Good one Timmy.”

He tilts his head towards Jason to flash one of his famous smiles.

“I’ve always kind of wanted a summer wedding,” he says.

Jason is getting married to the love of his life the third weekend of June, whatever those dates were. His proposal might have been a little botched, but he’d get the wedding right. Which meant he had almost three months to cram in a year of planning to create the perfect wedding. He could do this.

* * *

With a suggestion from Alfred, the boys decided to divide and conquer to finish planning the wedding in time for the three months to be up. Tim is currently curating the guest list. Damian, since he had the nicest handwriting by far out of all of them, was tasked with writing up the save the date cards. Bruce was going to pull a few strings and flash a few smiles in the upper rings of Gotham to secure Jason and Dick a few last-minute venue options. Alfred was the backup man to this operation, jumping in when needed and offering support when he wasn’t.

That left Jason and Dick with everything else to do. Their first approach to tackling this was to hire a wedding planner, who had tasked Jason and Dick to create a mood board. Jason wasn’t even sure what the hell that was, but here they were, sprawled out on the length of the couch together, creating one from searching wedding pictures online.

“I think our wedding color should be blue,” Dick says, who shoves a photo of blue roses at Jason’s face.

“Nothing screams Nightwing like blue flowers as the centerpiece. In that case, I want our cake to be firetruck red,” Jason says.

He shows a picture of a cake that’s bright red and reads ‘Happy 12th Birthday’ in white icing.

“Okay, point taken,” Dick says.

They return to the monotonous gesture of scrolling through an endless loop of photos. Jason lands on a picture of a groom wearing a purple pocket square.

“What about purple?” Jason says.

Dick, who is using Jason’s chest as a pillow, leans back to look at Jason with a question to his face.

“If you mix blue and red paint together you get purple, right? So, having our wedding theme be purple would be a good mix of both. Without screaming Nightwing or Red Hood in bold to every scum in Gotham,” Jason says.

Dick breaks out into a smile and coos, “Jay Bird, you’re such a romantic!”

“Shut it,” Jason says, going back to their tireless search for wedding ideas.

“Still I think it’s perfect,” Dick says, causing Jason to feel a hint of pride. He may be able to pull off the wedding that Dick deserves yet.

* * *

The next thing on their to-do list was to select the caterer. They headed to the site of one the caterer’s that Bruce always hired for some of his charity events. Dick always seemed fond of the food for whatever reason. Jason didn’t quite understand. From what Jason could remember, the food was hit or miss.

“Mr. Grayson and Mr. Todd?” A man greets them when they enter the restaurant. Without waiting for a response, the man leads them to a round table. The table is located near the large chrome doors that lead into the kitchen. Almost immediately after sitting down, a plate materializes before them.

“You two must be the ones Bruce Wayne sent over,” the man setting the plates down says. He greets them and reveals that he is James and the head chef of the establishment.

Dick and Jason discover quickly that James, while a friendly man, should not be trusted with another person’s taste buds. Each round of the six course meals increases in absurdity. Most of the food is spectacular, but a few things are not so. This lasts in five flurrying rounds of a foodie’s Russian roulette, until they miraculously begin the final course: dessert.

James disappears behind the revolving kitchen doors, which allows Dick to take the opportunity to lean over and whisper to Jason. “Is it even possible to enter a restaurant emptier than when you came in?” He says.

Jason laughs under his breath and, taking care not to speak too loudly, he says, “Trust me, it’s possible. I can show you, but I don’t think James will like having evidence of the past five courses all over his white linen tablecloth.”

“Do we even need a dessert course? We’re going to have the wedding cake.”

Jason shrugs. If anything, he figures that with more choices lowers the possibility that someone might cause a scene about how they don’t like fondant covered cake when all they have is that. Soon James slides past the kitchen doors and to their table, serving each of them a plate of three slider desserts.

“Dessert is my specialty if I do say so myself. You will not find another dessert like these in all of Gotham” James says.

He points to one of the mini-desserts and says, “a coffee gelatin. It pairs perfectly with an end of the meal coffee.”

Bits of whole coffee beans poke out of the jelly. The entire thing is unfortunately shaped.

“A blueberry cream cheese salad,” James says, pointing to the next.

James had Jason in the first part of that sentence; blueberries and cream cheese pairing perfectly together, until they’re sloshed onto a plate of leafy greens.

“And a chocolate fudge mountain cake,” he finishes.

The chocolate cake looked promising, but within the first bite Jason realized that he may have been a bit too trusting with it. There was a strange texture in the middle of this cake, in between the cake layers and fudge filling.

James leans in close and says, “the secret ingredient is prunes.”

The expression on Jason’s face falls and his fork would have too if pure disbelief hadn’t frozen the utensil in his hand.

Dick, who held a bit of the coffee gelatin up to his nose to smell it first, paused. He looked over at Jason, who was still frozen to the spot. Dick covered the start of a laugh with his hand. James quickly leaves the two of them to eat and decide which meals they would like for their reception.

“Prunes, Dick. He put prunes in a perfectly fine chocolate cake. What kind of mad man does that?” Jason says.

He’s holding his head in his hands. First thing on the wedding to-do list and this is the catering choice. He starts running the numbers, calculating who else could agree to whip them up full course dinner plans in an obscenely short amount of time. Jason peers through the slits between his fingers to see Dick looking at the desserts with the same smile that Jason remembered always gracing his face whenever he looked over at the table full of food during charity events. The kind of private smile that is only shared with himself, like an inside joke.

“So,” Jason starts, breaking Dick out of his damn captivating, smiling trance. “Would you rather eat the coffee gelatin or the blueberry salad? I’m partial to the salad, I love my lettuce with cream cheese.”

“It’s a hard choice,” Dick says, his voice thick with thoughtful consideration. “Do you think Alfred could make enough pancakes or something for everyone to eat instead?”

“He’d probably have us in the kitchen helping him the entire time. We’d miss half of our own reception.”

Dick’s eyes wander to the plate of desserts in front of them again, and that same smile ghosts across his face.

“You might not remember this,” Dick says, “you were still Robin at the time, and we were at one of Bruce’s events together. You choked on nearly everything at the buffet table, all of it tasted horrible. So, you took a bit of one of the foods on your spoon. I think it was a jello mold with vegetables in it.”

Dick mirrors the same with the coffee gelatin and holds the spoon up to eye level.

“And flicked it directly in my face,” Dick says, again mirroring the action.

The coffee spread lands on Jason’s cheek. Jason thumbs at the spread and leans over to try to spread it across Dick’s forehead. Dick successfully pushes Jason away, but the spread lands in Dick’s mouth instead. The gelatin hitting his taste buds causes Dick to immediately make a face.

Jason laughs then, after washing down the taste, Dick says “Bruce and Alf were so angry with us for starting a food war at our table.”

“This caterer’s food always reminds me of that,” Dick says. Smiling.

Jason doesn’t remember that. There are so many holes in his memory by this point that he knows his brain must be the equivalent of swiss cheese. He thinks that this must have been around the time that Dick was still standoffish from the rest of them, still living his own life in Bludhaven for the most part. He imagines that event may have been one of the first steps towards Dick warming up to Jason.

Later, when they’re walking out of the restaurant with the menu decided, Jason makes a mental note to call up Bruce later to ask him why the fuck has he been hiring a caterer that serves garbage at his events.

* * *

Jason is pulling his bike into a parking spot in downtown Gotham when his phone rings.

“Yeah?” Jason says, not bothering to read the caller ID.

Nobody has access to his phone number unless he wants them to.

“You really have to work on your greetings, Jay,” Dick says on the other line. “Tim called. He and Damian finished the cards, by the way. Bruce secured the venue,” Dick continues, updating Jason.

Jason continues down the road, looking for the suit shop that’s around here.

“Oh,” Dick exclaims, grabbing Jason’s attention. “I finished my wedding vows. How do you feel about me starting my vow by calling you little wing?”

“Only if I can call you big D in front of our friends and family. And I’m not talking about your name here.”

Dick laughs the kind of laugh that means ‘no way in hell’.

“Yeah, thought you’d hate that. Anyways, good luck at your suit fitting. Love you.”

Jason gives Dick the same goodbye back and hangs up the phone in time to spot the small shop. This suit shop has been here probably since Gotham’s founding. The dark wood soaking up decades of cologne, leather, and old money.

A man greets Jason at the door and immediately sweeps him into a dressing room with a pile of suits to try. Jason tries on the first one and steps out to look at himself the trifold floor length mirror near the dressing rooms. In the mirror he sees himself wearing an almond colored tweed suit. It’s a soft, flexible suit perfect for croquet, a game Jason has never played and never plans to. Pass.

The next suit on the hanger is a garish blue one. He’s heard of people not being able to take their eyes off a bride wearing a wedding dress, but Jason doesn’t think he wants the same effect. Pass.

He fingers through the layers of suits; too boxy, too casual, and this one makes him look like a 1920s mobster.

He pokes his head out of the dressing room, and locks eyes with the clerk who met him at the door. Jason steps thunder across the floorboards.

“Yes, Mr. Todd? Do you need another size?” the clerk stammers.

“I’m just wondering why the hell every suit I try on looks like a costume?” Jason says. He crosses his arms across his chest, only now realizing that he isn’t wearing a shirt and is standing before the clerk with only his boxers as cover. Jason can only imagine what the clerk thinks of the scars and bullet-wounds littering across his skin.

“Do you have any simple black-tie suits?” Jason says, snapping the clerk to attention.

“Yes, of course!” The man stammers. “This isn’t from our newest collection, unlike the suits in your dressing room. But you might like it.”

The clerk picks out a suit from one of the racks. Jason grabs the suit and makes his way back to the dressing room. He stands before the tri-fold mirrors wearing the suit. It’s midnight black, and slimming. He thinks of that dumb show that he and Dick watch on occasion. The one where brides try on dresses and say ‘yes’ when they’ve found the perfect one. Jason would be lying if he didn’t want to say ‘yes!’ to this suit with the same enthusiasm as the brides on that show.

* * *

The last two weeks before the big day is a mad rush of calling, setting appointments, verifying things, then resetting appointments because they clash with something else. By the time the sun rises on his wedding day, Jason is a concoction of exhausted and tense. His head is pounding, and his stomach is flighty.

 _Nerves?_ Jason thinks, _Is this what’s called wedding jitters?_

The only cure to his wedding symptoms is the ten minutes he spent lying in bed with Dick and rubbing soft circles onto the skin of his back. 

Now at the venue, the jitters have come back in full force. He’s standing in the dressing room with his suit, which had been tailored a tad bit too small, showing off his ankles like a Victorian harlot. But the worst offence, he decides, is the flower held in his hand.

The wedding flowers are lilac. Not the royal purple that he and Dick had picked out for the rest of the wedding colors, but instead a soft, muted lilac color. He roughly pins the flower to his suit pocket, spilling a few petals to the ground in his haste. Then he storms out of the room to track down the first person he finds holding a bouquet he to say, “Get me the florist. I want her on speed dial.”

Behind him Tim, who was readying ceremony programs, overhears Jason. He abandons the cardstock to go to Jason’s side.

“Hey, Jason. Something going on?” Tim says.

He wraps an arm around Jason’s broad shoulders as if to steer him away from the florist who had gone wedding gown white in the face.

“They’re lilac,” Jason says, “and look at my ankles!”

Tim chances a glance towards the floor before hesitantly looking up to Jason.

“Your ankles look more pale than lilac,” Tim says, not fully understanding Jason’s meaning.

Jason wants to shake his shoulders.

“No, I mean the flowers,” Jason grabs at his breast pocket, “are the wrong color. It’s not the right purple. The color should be the perfect union of red and blue!”

Jason’s voice rises with a twang of stress for each syllable. He releases the suit to point at his feet.

“And these pants are too short. Look at them,” Jason says.

Tim takes another look at his pants, perfectly cropped above the ankle. Jason doesn’t dwell on Tim for long though because he spots the wedding planner rounding the corner. His sights lock onto the wedding planner. He shifts Tim an inch to the left and rushes past him to catch up to her.

* * *

It wasn’t the crazed look in the server’s eyes or the way everyone seemed to be rampaging down the hallway away from something. Those things would have set Dick on edge normally, but instead it’s Jason’s voice booming down the corridor that has Dick in a hurry.

Tim and Damian are huddled by the door to the large room where their ceremony will take place in a few short hours. The door is cracked open allowing for them to peek inside and as Dick nears closer he can see why they’re cautious. Jason is nearly holding everyone inside hostage with his hysterics. The wedding planner flits about, trying to perform damage control. The caterer is standing off to the side, clearly uncomfortable. And Dick doesn’t even know when the suit tailor got here and why he’s among the bunch too.

All of three of them though, share the same look of deep seeded fear in their eyes. Jason, on the other hand, seems to be oblivious to this or of how his voice has raised. He’s holding a bouquet in one hand, a hors d’oeurve in the other, and motioning at his suit.

With a single look Dick knows he’s missing some critical information here.

“Who pissed him off?” Dick asks, turning to his brothers.

Damian crosses his arms saying, “I’m not at fault. Ask Drake, he was already here when I arrived.”

Dick looks to Tim, who shrugs in return with a sheepish smile.

“I’m not,” Tim starts, then tries again, “I really don’t know what happened. My eyes were off him for one second and the next, he’s basically climbing the curtains yelling about color tones and perfection.”

Dick looks back into the room. Jason is loud, but he’s not acting as if he’s truly angry about something. His foot is tapping the ground lightly enforcing the idea -- to anyone who doesn’t know him that is – that he’s pissed off. Dick, on the other hand, knows that this is a nervous tick of his and he likes to tap out songs in morose code when nervous.

Like the last piece in a Tetris puzzle, the entire thing clicks. Dick can’t help but smile at the catastrophe before him. Jason had been seemingly calm and collected this entire time. When he did get rustled about something, he only calmed himself down with a few ‘gotta be perfect’ underneath his breath. All the pressure that Jason’s put on himself about the perfect wedding had done a number on his psyche.

Dick opens the door, which receives him a few looks from Tim and even Damian, their eyes asking him what exactly he’s planning on doing. He never expected to sweep down the aisle to the alter to meet Jason twice in a day. But here he is standing before Jason. 

Dick says to their audience, “Can we get a moment?”

The wedding planner, caterer, and tailor don’t waste any time leaving the room and thrusting the door behind them.

Dick takes Jason’s hands and pulls them nearer until they’re face to face.

“I don’t think they were expecting you to go almost Red Hood on them,” Dick says. Jason stays quiet so Dick tries again. “You spent all of our bridezilla drama in one go and didn’t leave any for me! Now how am I supposed to complain about no one listening to me on my big day?” Dick says.

He offers a slight chuckle. But the mood still doesn’t lighten. Instead Jason turns his jaw to the doorway.

“Jaybird, you really care about this wedding, don’t you?” Dick says.

This catches Jason’s attention back onto Dick. Jason squeezes Dicks hands as the words rush out of him.

“Of course, I do. Why do you think I’m doing all of this for you!” Jason snaps, but his words, while forceful aren’t made out of malice.

This gives Dick pause. _Jason is acting this way because of him?_

“You’re doing this for me?” Dick says slowly.

“Well, yeah. You deserve it after I botched the proposal. It’s only fair that I give you the perfect ceremony,” Jason says. He huffs out this answer like its common knowledge. As if Dick could search a thesaurus and find that redemption is synonymous with planning a perfect wedding.

“Jay, no one expects every step of a wedding to be perfect. I didn’t expect it to be. We could have eloped and avoided the whole thing and I would have been happy!”

Dick releases Jason’s hands in favor of emphasizing this with large sweeping hand gestures to get his point through Jason’s impervious wall. Jason looks astonished at first before his brows smooth over in contentment. He leans in close and Dick catches a hint of Jason’s cologne.

“We can still elope if you want?” Jason says. “I can make a courthouse perfect. Romantic even.”

Dick pecks Jason’s cheek. He loves how his lips brush over the smooth freshly shaved jaw.

““No, I think you deserve a perfect wedding just as much as I do,” Dick says.

In the end, they do marry in the venue beside the lilac roses. The following reception becomes a test of strength as they try guessing the flavors within the strange entrees. And even when news of Jason’s bridezilla moment passes to those who weren’t present, it doesn’t stop the knowing look shared between Dick and Jason. They both still consider the proposal and everything leading up to it charming, though Jason refrains from using the term perfect.

**Author's Note:**

> If you noticed any spelling or grammar errors while reading then please feel free to point them out to me. I don't mind! 
> 
> You would not believe how many wedding blogs I went through to learn about weddings. I'm not married so I had a lot of research to do!  
> I also would have loved to include more Tim, Damian, Cass, Steph..... basically everyone. But I quickly realized while writing that I am under qualified! I tried. I tried so hard to make it work and to include everyone. Maybe by next year's exchange I can be a little more adept at writing them.
> 
> Thank you for the prompt, Hedgebelle! It was so hard to choose between the prompts you gave me (they were all so good!) but I hope I did it justice!!


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